Acts
22:22 ¶ And they gave him audience unto
this word, and then lifted up their voices, and said, Away with such a fellow
from the earth: for it is not fit that he should live. 23 And as they cried out, and cast off their
clothes, and threw dust into the air, 24
The chief captain commanded him to be brought into the castle, and bade
that he should be examined by scourging; that he might know wherefore they
cried so against him. 25 And as they
bound him with thongs, Paul said unto the centurion that stood by, Is it lawful
for you to scourge a man that is a Roman, and uncondemned? 26 When the centurion heard that, he went
and told the chief captain, saying, Take heed what thou doest: for this man is
a Roman. 27 Then the chief captain came,
and said unto him, Tell me, art thou a Roman? He said, Yea. 28 And the chief captain answered, With a great
sum obtained I this freedom. And Paul said, But I was free born. 29 Then straightway they departed from him which
should have examined him: and the chief captain also was afraid, after he knew
that he was a Roman, and because he had bound him. 30 On the morrow, because he would have known
the certainty wherefore he was accused of the Jews, he loosed him from his
bands, and commanded the chief priests and all their council to appear, and
brought Paul down, and set him before them.
The Jews had listened
to Paul but were now moved to anger and riot. They wanted him dead. The things
they did in tearing off clothing and throwing dirt in the air were signs of
being upset and angry like you throwing a coffee cup across the room or turning
over a table while arguing with a family member.
Paul is about to be
scourged. Scourging was a brutal whipping, a punishment Christ endured. But,
Paul objects because he is a Roman citizen and has not been condemned in a
legal proceeding. Roman citizens, unlike the conquered nations over which they
ruled, had specific rights. The right to a legal trial, to face your accusers,
and defend yourself as well as the right to appeal a decision made by a
magistrate were among the rights guaranteed to a Roman citizen. Offering
limited citizenship was a way Rome exerted control, held out the proverbial
carrot and stick to the races they conquered in an attempt to Romanize them.
The bottom line is Paul, as a Roman citizen, had a right to some type of
judicial proceeded and could not be simply punished at the whim of a Roman
soldier, even if it would make the crowd happy.
Paul was probably a
Roman citizen at birth because his father would have been a Roman citizen,
either having been enslaved and freed by a Roman or having performed some
service that granted him citizenship. In any event, Paul, while identifying
ethnically, religiously, and culturally as a Jew was legally a citizen of Rome.
We identify as a
national identity; like American or Polish-American or Pennsylvania Dutch or
even an ethnic identity like African-American but our legal citizenship is
before God in Heaven of which we are ambassadors as Paul will make clear.
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